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Redskins Locker Room

To boil down the issue, if the Redskins had supported Gregg Williams's superb defense with just 19 points in every game, Washington would have gone 12-4. Gibbs once had a team whose lowest game total of the entire regular season was 23 points. And it didn't even win the Super Bowl. If that Gibbs offense had been matched with this Williams defense, we might have seen a 16-0 season. So nobody knows better than Gibbs how much his offense sank this team.

To boil down the issue, if the Redskins had supported Gregg Williams's superb defense with just 19 points in every game, Washington would have gone 12-4. Gibbs once had a team whose lowest game total of the entire regular season was 23 points. And it didn't even win the Super Bowl. If that Gibbs offense had been matched with this Williams defense, we might have seen a 16-0 season. So nobody knows better than Gibbs how much his offense sank this team.

I think Steve Czaban (spelling?) of 980 sports radio said it best after the game when he said he didn't know what emotion to feel...whether to be encouraged at how good we will be next year, or upset at what could've been this year with Ramsey starting instead of Brunell. With Brunell benched, and Ramsey starting by week 4, we would probably have been 8-8 and held the tie-breaker over Minnesota and made it to the playoffs.

No sense in pounding your head against the wall wondering what could have been.

It's not as simple as saying well if Ramsey started earlier we'd be in the playoffs.

We have to consider if Ramsey would have been ready to play earlier. Let's not forget how miserable he looked in the preseason. He clearly didn't have a firm grasp of the offense at that time, and just perhaps that's part of the reason Gibbs kept him on the bench for so long.

ramsey is the man in dc for at least the next 4 years.gibbs knows what he's doing,but i bet looking back he would have pulled brunnell out earlier than he did.when brunnell had the hamstring injury in game two,the next game(the mnf against dallas)we could have really seen how much ramsey knew.next year,the skins offense will be the same,but gibbs will work with ramsey's talents to call the plays.i was wrong when i critized ramsey,he is the best qb the skins have had since trent green.next year,will either swim or drown.

Not to mention, Matty, that Ramsey himself said that he was not ready and didn't have a full grasp of the offense earlier in the season.

Exactly.

I think we can all agree Gibbs left Brunell in too long, but I think we also need to consider how much of that was due to Ramsey simply not being ready.

After seeing Ramsey on tape from last year, perhaps Gibbs saw a QB that was a bit shell-shocked and had his confidence shaken. Not to mention the fact he needed to unlearn two years in a very unconventional offense.

It was obvious that Ramsey wasn't ready in preseason, but even if he still wasn't by say week 5-6, but Gibbs rolled the dice and put him in anyway, I believe he still would have been better than Brunell. And then, who knows, maybe a little more game experience in Gibbs offense and he might have been able to lead the team to a win in one of the close games against Pittsburgh or Philly...which were very winnable....and give the team a real confidence boost to beat the hell out of Dallas. But should, coulda, woulda.....

I agree that this season was disappointing, but you have to admit that this team has a much different "feel" even at 6-10 than it has the past few years at this point. It is a real team, a unit.....that feels it is better than it's record, and will be on a mission to prove it next year. Not a bunch of individuals playing together. Joe Gibbs is soley responsible for that (Williams too...but Gibbs was responsible for getting him here), and that is the reason next year will be an big improvement......without "winning" the offseason!!!

Something we should not overlook in all of this is that Ramsey had the foot injury at the end of '03 season and was undergoing surgery. If I recall correctly as a result of the surgery and subsequent rehab he was unable to train practice during the early minicamps, which undoubtedly slowed his progress in learning the new offence.

In contrast this off-season, Ramsey seems to be relatively healthy. I really hope that one of the Redskins WRs shows some gumption and tries to meet up with Ramsey to work-out in the offseason even if it is informally. I seem to recall that McNabb and TO were doing something similar during the '03 offseason to develop timing and rythmn.

Not sure what the NFL rules on this are, but it could be a sure-fire way for McKants (sp) and Jacobs to climb up the depth chart, and for McKants a chance to get out of the doghouse.

It's hard to speculate what Ramsey would do if started earlier........Would he be booed if he had more games like he did against Dallas throwing several interceptions and turning a win into a loss as he did in the Dallas game......or would we have had the promising QB we saw against the Vikings......I know one thing....our team is much more promising then our greatest rival, the Cowboys, the media here in Texas are saying at least Gibbs has something to build upon......a good defense, and we have a young promising QB......meanwhile the Cowboys need help on both defense and offense....and you are not going far with a 43 year old QB.....they haven't established whether Henson or Romo are their guy at QB.......their line is medicore...as is their secondary.....the only bright spot for the Cryboys is their rookie RB Julius Jones...things looke BLEAK for the Boyz and promising for the Skins......why we could SWEEP the Cryboys next year.........

Something we should not overlook in all of this is that Ramsey had the foot injury at the end of '03 season and was undergoing surgery. If I recall correctly as a result of the surgery and subsequent rehab he was unable to train practice during the early minicamps, which undoubtedly slowed his progress in learning the new offence.

In contrast this off-season, Ramsey seems to be relatively healthy. I really hope that one of the Redskins WRs shows some gumption and tries to meet up with Ramsey to work-out in the offseason even if it is informally. I seem to recall that McNabb and TO were doing something similar during the '03 offseason to develop timing and rythmn.

Not sure what the NFL rules on this are, but it could be a sure-fire way for McKants (sp) and Jacobs to climb up the depth chart, and for McKants a chance to get out of the doghouse.

Yeah that's definitely a great point we shouldn't overlook. Now that he's headed in to the offseason healthy, he can hit the ground running and concentrate on learning the offense rather than trying to rehab at the same time. There's no doubt that recovering from his surgery slowed his development down a bit last offseason.

Along with continuing his development in the offense, I think the staff is looking for Ramsey to step up in a leadership role and take control.

If I was Ramsey I'd get all the WR's together for a week or two in the offseason, take a trip to some place warm and work on ripping through the playbook and getting to know each other's tendencies.

Mattyk72 - I alluded to it in my post, are there any restrictions from the NFL regarding teammates getting together voluntarily and praciticing, but not in a way sanctioned by the club?

I'm no expert, but the way I understand it, while on their own time during the off-season, players can choose to work out wherever and with whomever they want. We've heard how McNabb and TO got together last year, so hopefully Ramsey and at least a couple of the receivers can get together some this year and get some real chemistry.